Film and Visual Culture

In the wake of the “visual turn” in the
humanities, film, photography, video, and visual culture in general have
become increasingly important in German Studies. In addition to a
course (Freud's Vienna) that partially focuses on the visual culture of
fin-de-siècle Vienna, the department offers courses on Weimar Cinema and
the New German Cinema and is developing courses on contemporary German
film and on cinematic adaptations of literature. The department’s
research and teaching strengths are in the history and aesthetics of
German cinema from silent film to the present; the interaction between
film and literature; in exile cinema; and, more specifically, in the
major directors Fritz Lang, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Werner Herzog.